


Falling in Love With the Other Side

by Barlyle_Trash



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 11:10:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13588821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barlyle_Trash/pseuds/Barlyle_Trash
Summary: This is the final chapter I have written so far, and I don't know how long it'll be until the last two are finished. All of this written before is un-betaed, so please excuse me if there are any grammar errors, or idiosyncracies in timing, etc.I wrote almost all of this with limited research, just the soundtrack playing on repeat, and went with what I felt to be right when writing the characters.Thank you for reading this far, if you have. I know it can be a pain to read my choppy writing sometimes.





	1. An Open Door to Home

"I've got everything I need right here, right now. I just... I never thought this was possible, Charity." 

"Phineas, you know I always believed in you. Even when it seemed impossible. You're so good at selling the mystery. You could turn a rusty piece of metal into a miracle device. Remember what you did for my sister, with the wish lamp? No one else could have thought of that." 

"It's the miracle works of a crazy man. They say I'm crazy. I say its just a million dreams." He laughed, the rich happy laugh of a careless man. 

"You always sang about dreams when we were little. Something about a million dreams with a million colors, a million things to make me smile on a rainy day. I think I lost my mind trying to not fall in love with your dream." Phineas looked at her, that same desperately sad look he had had when she had confessed to him. "Phin... I know. It's wrong of me to even still think about us-" 

"Charity. You still think about it?" 

"Phin, I don't think I'll ever meet someone else." 

"You're the kind of person someone could have a million dreams about Char. And you'll meet the dreamer who loves you, but that dreamer isn't me." She smiled sadly, reaching out to hold his hand just one more time. 

"I can't help but want it Phineas, even if it will never be. You're  just.. what I always imagined I would have. Even when we were little, you were always there. Electrifying. Fantastical. You made me live in a dream world even when I was wide-awake. You could make me believe that unicorns were real! Unicorns! Phin, you can't blame me for loving your magic." 

"And it was all by magic that I got this opportunity. Char, I still can't believe that they gave me the money. Me! A crazy old man with no collateral and a crazy dream." She laughed, pulling back from him. 

"Go Phineas. Break free. Show off that dream and the millions of others." Charity smiled, pushing him forward towards the carriage. "You're more of a dreamer than I can be. The risk taker. The believer. The magician. The showman." Her voice caught, a single tear ran down her cheek. Phineas halted, turning back, running his gloved hand down in the tear's track. 

"I won't be gone forever Char. And when I'm gone, I'll still be in your heart."

"Next time I see you Phineas, it will be on the other side of the stage. You're the one who's on to something. I'm just the woman who's too afraid to go with you." 

"Char, you know I would take you!"

"Phin, trust me. No matter what happens, I'll never tell them. But I can't change myself. So go, take your life by the horns and rule it. But please, just let me mourn for what we can never be." 

"Char-"

"Nothing you'll ever say could ever be enough. Phineas, if you didn't drop down on one knee and propose your love to me, it would never be enough. No apology. No promises. I'm hopelessly in love with you in a bad way. Don't make me embarrass myself anymore by telling you again and again." She pushed him forward, away from her, into the dark unknown that would bring him to who he was. "Phineas. Go. Become who you were meant to be." He smiled at her, and she knew in that moment, that she wouldn't see that smile again for a long time. He was going to rule the world, and he was going to do it without her. "Don't forget me when you're famous Phineas. I want a special wave when you perform for me." 

"You don't know that I'll be a performer yet."

"Phin, you've never been anything but the greatest showman alive. You march to the beat of your own drum, and you aren't apologetic for it. You broadcast pure P.T. Barnum constantly. Just don't forget little old me down here when you're all the way up there." A tear, matching to her own, dripped down the cheek of the man before her. "You're going to rule the world," she said, and he smiled through the tears. Just a little. 

"Char, you'll always be in my heart. I won't forget you. Never." 

"You'll rewrite the stars Phin. I know you will. Now please, go. For the third time. I've never known someone who could drive out a goodbye for so long." 

"You know I get paid by the minute," he joked, a cocky smile spreading across his face.  

"Always looking for a quick buck. That's my Phineas. You're in love with yourself." 

"And money. The two pillars of my life." 

"Sometimes I regret telling you to go follow your dreams. You don't need the confidence boost of a hundred cheering crowds." 

"Possible. But..."

"You'd do it anyway. You could get famous at a desk job." He laughed, finally taking the first steps away from his friend of years. 

"I'll miss you Char." 

"I'll miss you too Phin. But you're more than the simple life I live. Go. Make the greatest show on Earth, and maybe I'll come by to see it once or twice."

"Good-bye, Charity."

"Good-bye, Phineas Barnum."


	2. Don't Say Its All Crazy

Running a museum of oddities is no easy job. They called it a circus, a menagerie, a mistake. But these were his people, no matter how they might say he exploited and used them. He had risked everything to be here, to have his family with him. He had promised Lettie, right from the beginning, that he would make the world love her. And he would never let go of that promise. 

Of course, the world would do everything in its power to make that promise a lie. 

Their first review had been... disheartening, to say the least. They had hated him. Him! Phineas Taylor Barnum, seller of miracles and magic. They called it a con show, a show for idiots. They said he was a fraud, a liar. And perhaps he used a bit of hyperbole. And perhaps he sometimes made people act up themselves a little. But, really, it was all just for the magic! And the magic worked. The people looked so alive after his show. They were laughing, smiling- families and friends coming in gaunt and tired, and leaving alive and holding hands. 

Perhaps the upper class would hate it, but it was his magic.  
He had to make them try it. 

* * *

Phillip couldn't be bothered to watch the premiere of his latest play. It was shit, honestly, but no one would ever say that about something he wrote. The critics would write about the happy romances, the Shakespearean comedies. They would tell stunning stories about their tears over his stories of forbidden romance and doleful endings, a Romeo and Juliet story written over a hundred different times. 

He wasn't proud of this play. It was written for a deadline he hadn't been ready for, had been written off an inspiration he hadn't even liked. But his producer had wanted it, had needed it, and the life he lived cost a fair amount of cash. And, considering his lack of hits lately, that cash was running a little low. Still in the tens of thousands, but... when you lived a life like his, you needed a lot of a buffer. 

And now his world class actors were performing utter rubbish for a bunch of fools who would eat it up just because it had the name Carlyle on the front. His plays used to have meaning. He wanted to make them think about society, think about the world they lived in, the two halves of everything, but they had just focussed on the glitzy glamor of the romance, and lost the underlying message. It had left him uninspired and tired, exhausted with the futility of his writing. So he had stopped caring. He wrote empty pieces about love and romance that always ended the same way. And he tried to pretend that it was even similar to what he had wanted to do with his life. He had the money, the inheritance, the social status, but somehow... it wasn't enough. 

"I hear you're the man they won't stop talking about. Mr. Carlyle, I presume." The rich voice of a man rung out next to him, and he spun to look at him. Dark brown hair, piercing honey colored eyes, and a black suit. He looked like anyone else of the snobs who would watch him, but there was something about his scruff, the lilt of his voice...

"You're Phineas Barnum, yes? I've heard many stories about you." The man cocked a grin at him, and Phillip could swear the light of the sun was buried in that man's smile. 

"All bad things, I presume." There was no joke to the statement, but there was no upset either. Just the plain statement of facts. 

"I've heard many things about your gaudy circus, Mr. Barnum. You and your performers." 

"It may be gaudy, but I fill a stadium. And when they leave, they leave happy."

"My plays sell virtue and experience."

"Phillip, that's where you're wrong," the man said with a chuckle. "You charge people to watch others talk to each other for two hours, yet somehow I'm the conman. Hyperbole isn't the worst crime. Men suffer more from imagining too little than too much." 

"Virtue can be gained from their interaction. What do they get from gawking at your creatures?"

"Happiness, Phillip. And, besides, the noblest art is that of making others happy." The circus man laughed, that deep bellied laugh that forces you to throw your head back and laugh along. He was contagious, in a way that Phillip couldn't figure out was good or bad. But beautiful, oh so beautiful. 

"You came all the way out here to insult my art for an hour, Barnum?" 

"I came all the way out here to ask the most beautiful man I'd ever seen to have a few drinks with me," the man said, with a wink and a tip of his hat, like a character from a comic page in the newspaper. 

"You know I can't leave. I have to mingle once its over. They can't know I skipped the premiere of my own play." 

"I'm afraid you're a bit too late for that. I sat through the whole stuffy affair just waiting for you to show your head, only to spot you out here in the shadows when I finally gave up. I was one of the last to leave, you know. I'm not quite sure how you didn't see all the others go." He looked at the theater, seeing for the first time how all the lights had been turned off, the place darkened throughout. 

"You were that dedicated to seeing me?" 

"I have something I need to talk to you about. Do you want to come with me? Get a drink?" 

"Are you going to insult me again?" 

"I feel like if I said yes, you'd refuse to come with me, but the truth is, I don't know. But, I do know one thing. Your earlier plays... they pointed to this truth. This idea. The class divide, the split of two worlds. Star crossed lovers, yes? Follow me, and I'll show you the other side." 

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, don't start acting sensible now. Just come with me. Live a little, Phillip." Phineas stepped too close into his personal space, cupping a hand to his cheek, leaning in so close that Phillip could smell the whiskey on his breath. "There's too much rationality in the world, my dear Mr. Carlyle." 

It was insane, but was so was everything else about that day. So he'd smiled at that Mr. Barnum, and he had agreed. Agreed to more than one thing that night. 

By the end of it, he'd been far too drunk to know what was going on, the only distinct thing the taste of the whiskey shots he poured down his throat, matching pace with Barnum. Barnum, who had sat too close to him, too warm and bright and loud for his poor drunk mind. And when Barnum had offered him the job, why, he'd taken 10% of a circus in exchange for a world of opportunity and fortune. Just to make the man smile one more time, because as it disgusting as it must be, the man was just so pretty when he smiled. He would do anything to keep him smiling forever, he knew, and that was perhaps the only thing he knew. 

And the next morning, when he awoke, he was curled up in a too small bed with the very man who he had just agreed to work with. His head ached, his mind ached, and nothing made sense at all. But spread across the face of the sleeping man was a smile, and in his heart, Phillip could only find peace.


	3. Rewrite the Stars

He could never explain how he felt when he looked into Phillip's eyes. They were the clearest blue he had ever seen, and when he saw him, his stomach twisted into a thousand knots, over and over until he could be sick. He never wanted to feel it, but he always wanted to feel it. And, when he had to leave him to tour the world with Jenny, when she kissed him before all the reporters, who screeched of scandal and hidden romance, it had been Phillip who he had thought of. Phillip, with his piercing eyes, that screamed of a sadness still unknown to him. He hadn't wanted Phillip to see him kissing Jenny, he hadn't wanted Phillip to think that he was... taken. 

He had always chased for more and more. He had shaken hands with queens and kings, he had received the praise of politicians, but... When it came down to it, he couldn't stand to have his partner know that he had kissed a woman. He wanted to go home, to his museum in Manhattan, and feel the same knots in his stomach, feel the same loose smiles. He wanted to go back to the very beginning. when he shared a bed in a rotting wooden apartment with the pretty man he had seen in the shadows outside the theater. The gorgeous man who had caught his eyes from the very first second he had seen him. 

But the calls of kings and queens had pulled him away from Phillip, from Lettie and Anne and everyone who had deserved his smiles and praise. And now his face was broadcast in the papers next to that of the gorgeous Jenny Lind, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The tour was cancelled already, the terrible kiss just a last goodbye from the lady who had been enamored with him. It was a loss, a loss he had never expected when he had gone to travel the world with the Swedish Nightingale and his sixty-piece orchestra. And loss was not something that he had often experienced.  It was the first sign of his show business's ugly side, finally rearing its head to take a bite. 

_Who do you think you are? You think you could ever be equals with the rich members of society? Did you ever really think you could succeed?_  His own thoughts plagued him constantly, painfully reminding him of how stupid he had been. Why had he ever left? 

* * *

It was hard to run the circus without the showman, without the magic. Everyone was amazing, too amazing, for how he acted. He could be like a petulant child, and on those first days when Barnum wasn't there, he had locked himself in his office and only worked with the numbers, unable to look at the faces of his employees, his people. They needed a showman to perform, but he had just left them out to dry, forced to stage their own freak show. The ticket numbers had dropped so drastically without their showman that he had received a letter from Barnum, a letter telling him to get his act together in perhaps the most uncouth way he had ever seen. Something about 'getting his fucking head in the game, or else he'll lose the fucking 10% and have to live like the fucking stuffed giraffe.' 

He wasn't sure if it was a death threat, but it was enough for him to put on Barnum's slightly too large suit, and run the circus with a gold topped staff and a too easy laugh. The reviews called him awkward, weird, lacking the certain magic that Barnum always brought to his shows. But people started coming back. Some of them to laugh at his lack of showmanship, perhaps, but at least they were coming. And soon Lettie and Anne and W.D. started to teach him, how to smile a little better, laugh a little better, and have the same magic that Barnum had always had. With elephants and leopards and music, he could weave a story that could put a smile on the most stubborn frown. And slowly, the reviewers began to say good things, to leave the show as enamored with the magic as they had been when Barnum himself had presented it. 

All of them except one.  
Mr. James Gordon Bennett. 

“So, Mr. Apprentice,", the herald reporter said with a smirk, "You left society to come be Mr. Barnum’s half-rate replacement while he travels a world of glitz and glamour with the lovely Jenny Lind. Don’t you regret it? Your parents publicly denounced your name, your plays hardly get fifty people in the seats anymore. You could have done so much more with your name, Mr. _Carlyle_.”

Philip smiled easily in respone, far too sure of who he was now to be afraid of an old man with the ability to accent the right words with his speech. “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t make me regret what I’ve chosen. Perhaps I’m not as good of a showman as Phineas, and perhaps I don’t have the sheer candor of someone like Lettie, but I’m just trying to follow in the steps of one of the smartest men I’ve ever met. I don’t know what your reviews give people, but I know what these shows give to my audiences. They give happiness, and as a wise man once told me - the noblest art is that of making others happy. Please, if you’re only here to insult me, move on. Happiness is what I sell, to whoever may wish to attend.”

“If I were any other reviewer, I might find charm in your provincial show. But I have an obligation to the society of New York-”

Phillip laughed, cutting off the man’s words. “I am from the society of New York, sir. And I know that if they gave it a chance, more than half of them would find the ‘provincial’ charm of my show to be irresistible. Move on, you pompous creep. I don’t expect people so dull-witted as New York society’s ‘Astor 400’ to understand my magic.”

“You’ll regret this, Carlyle,” James send with a snarl. "You used to be one of those 400, you know? And you cast it all away for this... filth! How can you look me in the eye and tell me that you're happy like this?"

“Mr. Bennett, it is easy to say something when you know it to be the truth. And the truth is that I _am_ happy here. This is the greatest show on Earth. It’s everything you’ll ever want. It’s everything you’ll ever need, and its right here. If you don’t want to be here, then leave. I’d rather be sweeping peanut shells here than burying myself in the superficial world you’re so obsessed with.”

“Watch your words. Your precious show is what Barnum is leaving so he can become a part of that society you so ceremoniously snubbed. Don’t tell me, pretty boy, that you left all of this just for the smile of a… eligible bachelor.”

“My good Mr. Bennett, what do you mean?”

“Phillip Carlyle, homosexual. Wouldn’t that make for a lovely article, and a lovely prison sentence? I’m sure the people of New York would see things my way if I painted them right. And I’m sure your precious Barnum would never be able to recover from a social blow of that level. You’ll never be stronger than me, Carlyle. I control what the people who are in control think. And I think there's a story behind why you were so quick to leave the world you proclaimed to love.”

“Leave my circus, or I will make you leave. You have no right to be standing here insulting me, my business, and who I choose to associate myself with. Get out!”  

  
“Phillip Carlyle, have fun with the glory while it lasts," the man said, putting down his pen with a flourish. "If I’m right about you, you’re worse than any of the freaks in your show.”

* * *

The train ride back to Manhattan must have been the longest train ride of Phineas Taylor Barnum’s life. He was bursting with anticipation, with fear. He needed to meet them, see them again and apologize for what he had done. They were his people, his beautiful wonderful people who he had promised the world to. How could have he told them that he would make them loved, and then just have left them the moment he’d been given half of an opportunity to travel the world. He’d made Jenny Lind famous across America, but at what cost?

He had called them freaks, and he had told them to hide away. He had shunned them, and turned away from his morals, his promises, his goals. Hadn’t he promised Phillip then, back when he was still new to his own circus, that they were leaving the world of the rich and the famous? Hadn’t he told him that they would be the leaders of the other side, the side that Phillip had so often attempted to obtain in his plays? A hundred times over he had promised to stay true to who he was, but he'd forgotten all of it, all that it had meant, the moment a pretty lady gave him a second of her time. It had been on his last night before he returned that he had seen one of Phillip's plays. The first the one the man had ever written, the brochure had said.  There had been something beautiful about it, an incredible contrast, an incredible promise of something more, so thinly veiled that it was nearly obvious. But it was ground breaking, a hidden romance within a romance between two men, a hidden meaning with a meaning. Phillip Carlyle had changed the world with his first play, but no one had been bright enough to even see it. No wonder he had drowned his sorrows in alcohol. To know that everyone you were dealing with was that blind... He doubted he could stand it for very long. That was the world that Phillip had tried to protect him from, and he had just ignored him and ran away with a promise and an incredible debt. 

And in doing so... he'd only caused hurt to his family, and brought scandal upon himself. Scandal after scandal, magazine after magazine questioning his drinking habits, his speech, how he could have changed so much from one performance to the next. And his family, his Lettie and Anne and W.D and Tom... why, he'd caused them harm for nothing but promised money. 

They were beautiful, they deserved to be seen, they deserved to go out before the world and never hide or make apologies for who they were. 

And he’d ditched them.

He'd told them to hide themselves. 

It ran through his head on repeat, his guilt and shame and anger, through his trip back to his home. He kept running his hands through his thick curly hair, thinking of all the warnings he had ignored, all the people he had hurt. 

Charity deserved better than what he had given her. A drawn-out goodbye and a ‘I guess I’ll never see you again’. He was a self-centered idiot, and for it she’d given him his privacy, she’d hidden his only secret. If that secret came out, if anyone else in the world knew, why he’d become one of his freaks, but she had never sold him out for a cheap buck and a title page in the newspaper. But she never sold him out, not once in all the opportunities she must have been given. 

And she must have seen the way he looked at Phillip when she came to the shows. He always saw her, up in the back corner, when he performed before the world. And he always gave her a special wink, just like he’d promised. But she deserved better than him. She deserved better than a man who could never fall in love with her if he tried. A _man_  who had hired a blue-eyed _man_ just because he’d been too pretty to say no to.

Gorgeous.

And that man had gone and fallen in love with Anne Wheeler and given him nothing but a pining empty heart and a hundred broken promises to the people that he owed it all to. And he was still a man who liked a man, and all honestly maybe all of this could be blamed on how fucked up his own heart was, maybe it was God's revenge upon him for how much he wanted to go against the rules of nature. 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

 

Phineas Taylor Barnum sat alone, in a train that was full, and he felt the tears in his eyes that could never fall. For no one could know. No one. No one. No one. 


	4. Come Alive

He kept having dreams of a fire, consuming him alive as he gasped and quivered, eaten up in flames that taunted him. “You’ll never be as good as Barnum,” the flames whispered in their roar. “You don’t deserve him. He only hired you as a joke and didn’t expect for you to accept. He regrets ever giving you part of his circus, so that’s why he travels the world and leaves you behind. He knows how disgusting you are. He knows that you don’t really love Anne. He knows that it’s all a cover-up. He knows all about you, so stop hiding. Stop hiding. Stop hiding." The flames would consume him, until he couldn't breathe or even think for pain, until he’d jerk awake, sweaty and hot in his bed, though all the blankets were thrashed away in his terror, as he ran away from the fire in his dreams. It was a fire in the circus, a fire where he could hear the cracking supports above him, and the screams of someone he loved, fallen just out of reach. The fire haunted him constantly, for even when his eyes were open he could see its flickers in the shadows on the wall. 

He was always anxious at work now.

It was too long that the dreams kept on, too long until a group of men didn’t leave the stands at the end of a performance.

“Hello, sirs. Could you please leave? We need to clean up the ring for the next performance.” Phillip Carlyle stood before them with an easy smile on his face, resting his arm on his broom. His showman's jacket was slung over his shoulder, his bowtie hung undone on his neck, and a few beads of sweat dotted his brow, as he worked in the heat of the indoor room. 

“Oh no, Mr. Carlyle. We’re waiting for Mr. Barnum.”

“It’s been well advertised that Mr. Barnum isn’t in town at the moment,” Phillip said, trying his best to remain calm despite the coldness to the air. The way they spoke, the way they looked. He was quite certain this an had been one of the protestors before. He began to tap his foot on the wood shaving covered floor, the stench of salt roasted peanuts thick in the air. “I’m afraid he won’t be back for quite a while now. You’d do best coming back in some months.”

“I’m afraid, Mr. Carlyle, that my friends and I will not be leaving you and your disgusting freak show alone," the man said with a predatory grin. "You know, we’ve all had rumors that you’re a freak like them. Are you not a God fearing man?”

“What do you mean, sir? I’m quite sure my choice of beliefs has little to do with the going-ons of a circus.” Phillip knew his smile was too pained by now, but he couldn't afford to drop it, couldn't afford to let them know that they were getting to him. 

“They say that you were a low-class prostitute who Barnum only hired out of the pity of his heart. A lady said she saw you two both exiting from a house together, the same day you were hired. In fact, they said that it was your escape from that upper-class world you were so keen to insult in your review in the papers. So, Mr. Carlyle, it is in fact pertinent. Didn’t you know that lying with another man is illegal, immoral, and against the wills of our God?”

“Then you’ll be glad to know that I have done no such thing. You should leave.” 

“Make me, Carlyle,” their leader said, a lit cigarette hanging down from his mouth, the ashes falling from his beard to the dry wood floor. “I don’t think a poof like you has the ability to. You’re lucky you’re white, or you’d be in the show with the rest of your freaks!” He spat on Phillip’s shoes, laughing, the stench of whiskey on his breath overpowering in the closed quarters of the room.

“Leave. Now,” Phillip growled, grasping his broom as though it were a weapon. “You’ll regret it if you don’t leave pretty goddamn soon.”

“Make me, _Carlyle_.”

Out of the shadows, Lettie led a group of their family, a group of them all armed with the planks of wood and bared teeth, knuckles up to fight and defend. “Gladly,” W.D. said, one of the few words the silent man would ever share with them. He was muscular and tall, taller than even Barnum, and he towered over the men before him.

The fear in the eyes of the others would be delightful, if it weren’t for the malice with which the man who originally confronted them glared. “I’m going to make sure that none of you live through the night,” he spat, before turning and sprinting towards the exits. They watched in painful silence, listening only to the sounds of their retreating footsteps until they were gone. They never heard the crash of the oil lamp when the whiskey drunk man threw it to the floor. 

“I can’t thank you all enough,” Phillip said, reaching out the grasp Lettie’s shoulder. “I owe you all my life. I don't think that man was sane, you know. Why, he threatened to have me jailed!”

 

“You do owe us a lot,”Anne said with a laugh. "Even more now than before, when we had to run this circus ourselves. I don't get paid enough for that you know!" Anne's words were light, joking, but Phillip could hear the meaning behind them. 

They continued in their revelries, each one asking for Phillip for a raise of increasingly exuberant amounts. A thousand dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, enough money to rule the world! 

Little did they know, in their laughter, that a roaring fire was growing behind them, quickly consuming the old wood of the Manhattan building. The sawdust piled over the floor to protect from any accidents was only fodder for this deadly accident, the largest accident of all.  They didn’t even see it in their mirth, not until the fire was licking at their shoes, and Anne let out a shriek when she turned and saw a roaring wall of flames behind them. The others sprinted for the exits, fear and adrenaline on their side, but Phillip stood stock still in fear. 

He couldn’t move, even when all the others ran, leaving him for dead in the rapidly burning building. They couldn't know that he wouldn't run, they didn’t know that he had seen these flames over and over again, chasing him in his dreams, where the exit was never there. Phillip stood there, watching the roaring fire, hearing the whispers in his ears. "God fearing men don't lie with men. You are an abomination. You are disgusting, worse than your freaks. You should be locked up with the man you fell in love with, because you love Phineas Taylor Barnum. Disgusting. Immoral. Terrible. Just stay here with me, don't run away. You know they would never accept you if they knew what you _are._ " It ran around in his ears, holding him down in his fear. He didn’t want to be like this. He hadn’t signed up to love a man. Perhaps it was better to just stay here like the fire wanted him to. The fire could just consume him and let all his broken, weird feelings disappear like they never existed at all. No one would ever know, except maybe Lettie with her ever perceptive eyes.

And even she could forget. 

They all deserved better than some broken man like him.

Some disgusting thing that shouldn't exist. 

The dreams were probably right. 

He should just stay here. He should just let himself die. 

* * *

He had been running to his circus, running as fast as his feet could carry him the moment he’d landed in the station. He needed to tell them that they deserved better than him, that he was back to redeem himself and be the show master that they all needed. But nothing made him sprint faster than the fire trucks racing in the same direction, the whispers he heard as he passed by. “Is that Barnum? How’d he get here so fast? He must have been coming back to town and he heard the news.” His circus. His people. And a roaring fire coming from just where he could swear his building resided.

When a sad looking fireman had him jump on the back of the fire truck, he knew that his worst fears had come true. His circus was burning, and his people were burning with it.

It was too long to get there, him hanging off the back of the truck by a fraying rope, fingers nearly as numb as his heart, his pulse racing so hard that he could feel its throb throughout his entire body. He could hardly breathe for his fear, his concern, for what might be.

No matter how much he wanted to worry about anyone else, Phillip was the only one on his mind. Phillip, with his blue eyes, that Phineas hadn’t seen in so long. Phillip, who had left him gasping for words the moment their eyes had met for the first time. And Phillip, who had taken over his circus without any complaints, without any requests for new money. Phillip, who he wanted to hold in his arms forever. Phillip, who he never wanted to lose again.

He grimaced, grimaced hard, because he knew – knew! – that he couldn’t just go up to Phillip and kiss him like he wanted to. He could never lie in a bed with Phillip, profess his love to Phillip, marry the man and be Phineas Taylor Carlyle. If he even mentioned the words, Phillip would leave him, leave him forever. And he would rather pine for the man by his side, than pine for a man that he would never see again. (Not to mention how one person telling his secret would end up with him jailed and shunned.) 

He was broken from his fears when the truck came to a crashing halt, outside of the burning building. He could see all of them right there, every single one of his family members, except... the only one he had been looking for. 

"Lettie! Lettie, where's Phillip?" he roared, racing to their sides. 

"I don't know Phineas. He never came out of the building." He wanted to stop to ask questions, to ask about where they had been, but a crashing sound from inside reminded him that he had too little time. 

He should have been afraid of running into a burning building of course, but when he leapt away from his family to find the man he needed in the red-orange darkness, it was the first time in months that he had been unafraid. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the final chapter I have written so far, and I don't know how long it'll be until the last two are finished. All of this written before is un-betaed, so please excuse me if there are any grammar errors, or idiosyncracies in timing, etc.   
> I wrote almost all of this with limited research, just the soundtrack playing on repeat, and went with what I felt to be right when writing the characters.   
> Thank you for reading this far, if you have. I know it can be a pain to read my choppy writing sometimes.


	5. Walking A Tightrope

The smoke was thick, black, choking. For all that Phineas coughed, and waved his hand before his face to try to clear the air, he couldn't see anything near him, nothing but orange tinged shadows. It was just him and the roaring fire, a formidable battle that reduced his world to nothing but this building, this room, each breath he took a miracle onto itself. Phineas staggered through the smoke, dragging himself forward with a strength he hadn't known he had. If it had been anyone else, anyone else at all, he’d never have done this, but Phillip… Phillip meant more than the rest. He could try to rationalize the man's importance, but Phineas knew, knew the minute that he had sprinted into the building, that it was nothing rational that made his entire body ache when he even dared to even think of a world without his business partner. 

And apparently, it would take the both of them nearly dying for him to realize that.

The wood creaking above him, all around him, like cracking ice or a ticking bomb, reminded him how low his chance was of surviving. And his chance of saving Phillip? Even lower. The building was waiting with baited breath, held up by a hope, a prayer, and a single brick that hadn't been able to succumb to the flames. But even a promised death wasn't enough to stop the crazed man, who staggered on ever faster. He could only just hear the calls of the others, screaming for him to come back to them. But he would never turn around. He had his arm over his mouth now, trying to breathe only through the fabric of his coat. Each breath was painful. Each step was excruciating. But it was all worth it. Phineas was well aware of the fact that he couldn’t function without that man, not anymore. There were a hundred logical reasons as to why he needed his partner, but not a one of them seemed to cover even half of what he felt. He'd be dead on the streets without Phillip Carlyle, and he was about to be dead because of the idiot.

He forced himself to stagger onwards, breathing in smoke-clogged air, counting the seconds in his head. It had been so long now since he had entered, though each second felt as though it were drawn out for a minute. He could feel himself giving in, his body just wanting to give up, to drop down to the floor and let the fire consume him. It was the smoke, the flames, eating away at him. At least he could die in his circus, a more honorable death than what he deserved. He closed his eyes, giving in to his craving to sleep, to rest. The pain of the fire seemed to dimish the moment he let go, leaning forward to lie across the floor. Until his graceful death was blocked by a soft body. A body dressed in the red coat he had worn so many times before. He rubbed his eyes, hoping beyond all hopes that this wasn't some vision of an oxygen-deprived mind. And the body stayed. By some miracle, the body stayed, still dressed in its bright red coat with golden cording. 

“Phillip,” he coughed out, reaching out to cup the man’s face in his coarse palms. “Oh my god! Phillip!” He let go of the man's face to break into coughs again, reaching to cover his mouth with his arm.  Phineas would have given anything at that moment to just continue to hold Phillip, to never look away from the man's face again. He was beautiful, even when half-asphyxiated and a little singed at the edges. And the surge in his heart to just save that man- to carry him out of there and never look back. Just walk right on down the street, out through the city to his house in the country, where he could lavish Phillip Carlyle with every praise and gift the man deserved. He would have sold his soul to the Devil to live that dream, if only the Devil gave him the opportunity. But there was no devil, only him and Phillip Carlyle, in the middle of a raging fire. If even the Devil couldn't help him, he'd just have to help Phillip himself. 

It was definitely the showman in Phineas Barnum that had him carry the man bridal style. 

As he stumbled away from that burning building, the roaring fire reaching out behind him, growling as it was cheated of its prey, he smiled, a real smile for the first time since before he had left with Jenny Lind. Just behind him, the roof came crashing down, a wave of fire lashing out and lapping at his coat tails. He broke into a run, lurching from side to side, the air burning his lungs. But he was alive. Phillip was alive. He could feel a laugh growing in his stomach. He could feel joy in every crevice and pore of his body. And he could-

With a booming crash, a burning wooden beam fell down hard before him, blocking the only remaining clear path to the exit. He could see Lettie's face, could see her smile crushed as the beam fell. Phineas staggered to a stop in his run, crouching down to drop Phillip's body to the floor. He could feel his breath coming faster, too fast, his heart racing and racing. He couldn't think. He could hardly breathe. He couldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't. He had been so close, but it would never be enough. He was no master of nature. He couldn't do it.

Until Phillip reached out, grasping his wrist weakly. “Phineas,” the man croaked, his words painful, coarse, harsh from the burns of the fire. "Rewrite..." His breath was too shallow, his eyes still closed, each syllable a battle. "...the stars." His eyes blinked open, hardly meeting Barnum's before they fell closed.

Phineas forced himself to stand, a small smile on his face, and the man he needed in his arms. "I'd rewrite the world for you, Phillip." 

He looked like a devil in the fire, his black coat singed around him, the whipping flames framing his silhouette with a hellish light. And in his arms, a small body lay, dressed all in smoldering red. When he stood tall before the fire, the once formidable beam seemed so very... small. As if he could jump over it. A wicked smile broke across Phineas' face. 

It was a series of miracles that let Phineas jump over that beam, carrying Phillip in his arms. He held the man closer to his chest than might but it was just a small indulgence. And as he staggered over the beam, almost falling over, he never once loosed his grip. He landed on both feet, the momentum of his jump forcing him to stagger out of the building into the darkness of the road. As he left the building, he let out a single resounding scream, feeling the hurt and the pain and the torment of the last months evaporate with his shout. He was finally able to breathe, and it was more than being out of the smoke. Behind him, his legacy, his business, everything that made Barnum's circus his, crashed to the ground in roaring flames. But his Phillip was alive. He was alive. His people were alive. No building, no legacy, could ever be more important than Phillip Carlyle. 

They said that day that it was the first time that Barnum had ever left his circus to cheers. What they didn't know then was that it wouldn’t be the last.

* * *

   
 A pair of arms swooped him out of the dark. 

A hard chest met his back. 

He wanted to scream, to cry. 

All he could see was black. 

 

A whispered promise reached his ear. 

A dream of a man looked upon his face. 

A man so gorgeous that soot and smoke

the fighting flames and the fires din. 

Couldn't make Philip let go of him. 

 

And so he told him everything

Even though his words fell silent on deaf ears.

"Let us rewrite the stars," he said.

But for all he knew, he was already dead. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My lit teacher would definitely kill me for the number of times I used staggering in my writing.  
> Oh well. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> And, honestly, poetry isn't my forte but I didn't know how else to represent a (mostly) passed-out man.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So I'm not the best writer in the world, but I just fell in love with Barlyle, and I wanted to take all of you along with me. <3


End file.
